


Unmasked

by lukadarkwater



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 23:43:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4806650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lukadarkwater/pseuds/lukadarkwater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What would have happened if Ladybug hadn’t figured out who was the real Chat Noir?  If she had taken off the real ring instead of the fake one?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unmasked

Ladybug looked between the two Chats, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

There was no denying that they looked alike in every way. From their bright green eyes to the way their cat ears were perched on their heads.

“What about the black butterfly?”

“It’s in his ring, hurry and take it off!”

Ladybug stared down at the struggling Chat on the floor.

“Labybug please! You have to know that I’m the real one! We’re partners!”

She crouched down and examined the ring on the Copycats’ finger. 

“Ladybug! Please!” The CopyCat’s voice was filled with fear and his eyes pleaded with her as she grasped the ring in her fingers. “I’m the real Chat Noir! Don’t believe him!”

Ladybug shook her head, “I think I would know the real Chat when I saw him.”

With a flourish, she pulled off the ring and the Copycat let out a loud yell as he began to glow green.

“Wh-” Ladybug gasped as the Chat she thought was real leapt off of the other Chat and flew towards her.

She felt her breath leave her body as he crashed into her and threw her to the ground.

“Hahaha!” he cackled, his eyes flashing with the glow of the real Chat on the ground behind him, “For all his talk, you couldn’t even tell the difference in the end. You two aren’t meant for each other, but now you’ll be mine”

Ladybug, stared open-mouthed up at him.

“Ladybug!” the urgent voice in her ear caused her to snap out of it “You have to protect Chat’s Ring! You cannot let HawkMoth get his hands on it!”

“Get. Off. Of. Me!” Ladybug grunted, using all of her strength to push away the Copycat and leap to her feet.

She wrapped her fingers tightly around the ring and turned to face the place where the real Chat was.

Green eyes, wide with shock looked into her own and she couldn’t quite understand what she was seeing.

There, kneeling on the floor, was Adrien.

“Ladybug, please, give me back my ring! We have to defeat him!” Adrien pleaded, struggling to his feet as the chains around his wrists clanked loudly.

“A-Adrien, n-no way.” Her brain couldn’t process anything. There had to be some sort of mistake he couldn't be…. there was no way.

Adrien looked confused, “How do you know my name? I have no idea who you are, I thought we agreed to keep that a secret from each other.”

She stumbled back, her heart pounding re-living all the times where he had held her hand, flirted with her. Had it really been Adrien all along?

She didn’t have any more time to process, however, because, at that moment, she sensed Copycat running towards her and her mind snapped to the one thing that made sense at the moment: combat.

She jumped out of the way as CopyCat leapt towards her and used her Yo-Yo to swing up onto the rafters of the building.

CopyCat followed her, perching on the beam across from her and gave her a smile that was especially creepy on Chat’s face.

“Ladybug!” Adrien called from down below, “Throw me my ring! I can help you fight him!”

“Oh yes, go ahead and throw it! You can bet that it will never reach him!” Copycat laughed, his tail swaying with amusement.

Ladybug knew that he was right, he had all of Chat’s strength and agility and even if he didn’t catch it in the air, he would be able to easily get it away from Ad-Chat she couldn't think of him as Adrien, not now before he had time to transform.

“Just give up your stone now! You don’t need it anymore, I’ll give you everything you ever wanted, my love.” Copycat cooed, crouching down like a cat getting ready to pounce.

“I’ll never give Tiki up to the likes of you!” She yelled and, with one hand tightly grasping Chat’s ring, jumped down towards the floor.

“No!” CopyCat snarled and leapt down after her, landing lightly before Adrien, his claws raised in defense. “He’s never going to get that ring again!”

“That’s what you think! Lucky Charm!”

Over Ladybug’s head, a small hand-held mirror appeared and Ladybug caught it with her free hand.

“A mirror?”

“Enough is enough!” Copycat cried, charging towards her, “I’m going to get that ring and there is no one who can stop me!”

Ladybug just barely dodged out of the way, feeling the gust of wind that followed his claws and skidded back a few feet, her eyes desperately searching for ways to use the mirror.

The fading light shining through the windows.

Adrien standing to her side.

Her Yo-Yo on her hip.

“Chat!” she cried out, still refusing to call him by his real name, “Catch!” She tossed him the mirror and Adrien's hands just managed to grasp it’s handle. “Remember that time at the Louvre? Let’s do it again!”

CopyCat launched himself towards her and Ladybug let him get close behind grabbing one of his hands and swinging him around to face Adrien.

“Now!” she yelled and jumped out of the way

Adrien tipped the mirror towards CopyCat’s face and the fake screeched as the light from the dying sun blinded him.

Then, with a lasso motion, Ladybug swung her Yo-You around him, tying him up tightly.

“No!!” CopyCat growled, struggling against his bonds “This wasn’t supposed to happen, you were supposed to be mine!”

“Sorry about that, but I’m afraid I’m not a fan of copy-cats.” With that, Ladybug plucked the imposters ring off of his finger and cleansed the moth inside of it.

With the spell lifted, Theo slumped onto the floor, unconscious.

“You did it Ladybug!” Adrien’s voice shocked her back to the present and she turned to face him.

He ran up to her, his bonds having fallen away when the spell was broken, and smiled at her - Chat’s smile. 

“Thank you for saving my ring,” he continued, oblivious to the chaos that was going on inside Ladybug’s head, “Honestly, I don’t know what would have happened if HawkMoth had gotten ahold of it.”

“Oh, right your ring” She unclenched her hand and held it out for him.

Feeling his fingers graze hers sent another jolt through her. He was real. He was here in front of her. He was Adrien.

He slipped the ring back on his finger and looked up at her.

“Hey” he said quietly, sounding more like Adrien than he had since he changed “How do you know who I am?”

Her mind searched for something, anything that would make sense in this situation. She couldn’t tell him who she was, she couldn’t. 

What if he doesn’t know me?

“Modeling!” She blurted out, the image of his modeling shoot in the park flashing through her mind.

“What?” He asked, looking a bit confused.

“You model. I’ve seen some of your stuff before, that’s how I knew you!” she said, feeling relieved that she had come up with something so fast.

“Oh, right of course.” he said, blinking thoughtfully “Yeah, that makes sense. Sorry, it just shocked me that you knew my name.”

“Yeah…. I didn’t expect it either.”

A long silence stretched out between them. Adrien was still looking at her, his eyes still filled with questions.

“I know we agreed to keep our real identities a secret…. but I really want to know who you are now.” he admitted, his eyes burrowing into her as if he could force the secret out of her with just his glaze.

“Look, it was a fluke that this whole thing happened in the first place! We should just forget about it and move on! Knowing who I am isn’t going to change anything anyway.”

“Are you famous too?”

Ladybug looked at him.

“That’s why I didn’t want to tell you who I was at first.” Adrien admitted “I didn’t want it to be something weird between us, you know?”

She laughed. “Believe me, I’m not famous at all.”

“Then why don’t you just tell me? I swear, I’ll keep it a secret. You can trust me.” His eyes pleaded with her and she felt her will crumbling.

Slowly, as if she might scare him away, she let her transformation fade. Her clothing back back, her Yo-Yo disappeared, and her mask fell away, leaving her feeling extremely bare before him.

She didn’t look up for a moment, terrified of what his reaction would be.

“Marinette?”

Her name was like a whisper in the huge warehouse, but it crashed around her head like a gong.

He knows me

“Marinette, is that really you?”

She finally looked up and met his gaze, his green eyes were round with shock and her heart fluttered a bit when he said her name again.

“Yes, it’s me.”

Adrien laughed.

The sound surprised her so much that she jumped a little.

“Sorry, it’s just, what are the odds that it would be the two of us? That we actually know each other as our real selves?”

His smile comforted her. “Ye-yeah, it’s so strange.”

He put his hand behind his head like he was nervous. “You’re just so different as Ladybug, I would have never suspected that it was you.”

“Different? How?” she blinked.

“You’re always so quiet at school, I don’t think we’ve ever said more than 20 words to each other. But as Ladybug, you’re so confident and cool and b-” he cut himself off and she noticed that the tips of his ears had gone slightly red.

All of the tension and confusion she had been feeling since she first figured out who Chat really was flowed out of her in that moment. She knew who he was and he knew who she was and that was okay.

He was still going to be Adrien, the cool boy at school but now he was also Chat. The boy who was always by her side when she needed him and that was all that mattered.

Everything was going to be okay.

Maybe it was the relief or hope or some new feeling that had wormed its way into her heart, but she felt no fear as she reached out and took Adrien’s hand.

He looked at her, shock in his eyes.

But she just smiled at him, and said “This doesn’t change the fact that you’re still a useless cat, you know”

He smiled back at her, and gave her hand a soft squeeze. “Whatever you say, Ladybug, whatever you say.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've been following this fandom since the early production stages and it was about time I wrote something for it. Hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
